Amy Rises
by Lord Kelvin
Summary: His mind is an open book. By the time the Master Emerald is pieced back together, she will become the author of his fate. Amy doesn't need your help, but it's not like you have a choice.
1. Prologue

Author's note: Amy's pursuit of Sonic is like a game of tag that she plays blindfolded. It's impossible to win if she can't tell where she's going, so why not shed some light for her and see what happens?

Expect runaway fluff, drama and a smidgen of disaster.

Disclaimer: Sonic the Hedgehog, related characters and locales are copyright SEGA.

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_**Amy Rises**_

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**Prologue**

The Master Emerald cracked. Those pests managed to surprise me yet again. "Live and learn," was it?

Faced with the choice of giving up my hostage or taking a direct hit from Amy's hammer, I chose the former and chucked Sonic's limp body towards the ocean. Amy took the bait like the predictable fool that she was.

As long as I had the Master Emerald at my disposal, victory would still be mine. With this amount of power, all I needed was a good angle to lock on to my target.

"Look out!" Knuckles yelled.

It was already too late. The Egg-O-Matic veered sharply to the side to dodge Knuckles' gliding path and place the three pests where I wanted them: in front of my mighty Chaos Cannon.

Fire!

I pressed the trigger and kept firing at them like my life depended on it, which it did. The amount of light and heat coming out of my own invention exceeded expectations. If nothing else, the Master Emerald was a good battery.

My enemies recoiled from the unrelenting barrage I subjected them to. Their cries did not fall on deaf ears, however. For as long as they had the strength to cry out, I would continue attacking. Sonic and his clique were very tough to dispose of. It would be prudent to stop only when they were little more than sacks of charred meat.

Knuckles had intended to shield his friends from my weapon and ended up falling first. The jewel that he deified sealed his fate as I willed it, the light boring right through his abdomen. Albeit his eyes remained open, they no longer reacted to their surroundings. One down, two to go.

Amy gritted her teeth as she held onto her love interest, who remained blissfully unconscious. In the way she was going, she would save him from drowning, but she had no means of protecting him or herself from my attack.

Several shots bounced off of her hammer while dozens upon dozens hit the mark. She swung the hammer valiantly in front of Sonic to shield him even though it didn't make much of a difference to the result.

"Wake up! Sonic! Save us!" she wailed as Sonic's blue pelt gradually darkened from the red spilling from his wounds.

I chortled at her tenacity. That girl knew neither when to quit nor when she had been bested by the best. The outcome was decided when she came to a gunfight wielding a hammer. It was high time to pay and take the fall.

"Futile…"

The shock, the hatred, the horror–the evolution of her expressions were a feast for my eyes. In the end, she has learnt her place. She was a FAILURE. She couldn't save ANYONE. She was merely a happenstance burden to the so-called heroes and she would fall into obscurity, leaving no trace or memory behind.

With defeat becoming apparent and her strength leaving her, Amy appeared to resign herself as she looked at her hammer one last time and closed her eyes. She hugged Sonic with one arm, shielding a part of his battered body from the cannon, an ugly grimace spilling over her face as she took in the pain.

Naturally, I was recording everything. These moments represented the tipping point to my victory. Every ounce of their hopelessness contained the seeds of a bountiful future for my empire. World domination was at hand.

I laughed. I laughed harder once I saw her let go of the hammer and I didn't stop laughing until the hammer flew towards the Master Emerald, shattering it to pieces.

"No!" I pulled at my moustache in frustration when I noticed that the Chaos Cannon stopped reacting to my input. Amy was not allowed to mar my perfect victory. I would show her that I was still in control. "No matter. I still have my missiles…"

At the press of a button, rows of armament tubes ejected from underneath my craft. Amy was about to make a splash in the water, as kibble.

The Egg-O-Matic shook violently. I glimpsed at one of the warning lights I had been ignoring to check what was going on only to realise that a shadow collided with my glass dome, partially obstructing my view.

"Make way! Coming through!" I heard a grating high-pitch voice. It was that fox. I distinctly recalled shooting him down, making sure that his plane was in pieces, and yet he was back in my hair. Bah!

He peppered my craft with bullets as he swooped past, disabling my autopilot in the process.

"Looks like I'll have to take matters into my own hands."

The missiles would be sufficient to bring him and the rest of them down definitively. I set off half of my reserves to tail the fox's plane and steered the Egg-O-Matic to get a good shot of his friends.

Rather than Sonic and Amy, he caught Knuckles first. The echidna wasn't moving, so Tails had to keep flying the plane with one hand while avoiding my missiles. His greedy propensity to save everyone would be the end of him.

The plane almost skidded on the surface of the water the moment Amy landed on top of the wing together with Sonic. It was a reunion not meant to last. Tails exchanged words with Amy. If this was a farewell, it would have been touching were I not its enforcer.

Missiles caught up to the plane, several of them exploding in the water as the plane made risky manoeuvres near the surface in a desperate attempt to shake them off. Tails was a good pilot, but he was running out of time; my missiles were simply faster. He would need several miracles to happen simultaneously to shake them off, and the Egg-O-Matic had extras to spare.

Amy put both Sonic and Knuckles in the passenger seat before limping to the tail of the plane and materialising the hammer in her hand. A foolish, if brave attempt. She was intending to knock away every missile I sent after the plane, ignorant to the fact that I could detonate them remotely.

I watched the first projectile approach the plane only to be hammered into the water below. It made an outstanding air bubble once it exploded. This lifted Amy's morale. She was now eager to let the missiles get closer and finish them off in droves. In the meantime, I tapped into the individual missiles' controls to surprise her. The first objective was to blow her off the plane, thus, shutting down the plane's only form of active defence.

She took careful aim at the closest missile and swung her hammer to make it collide with another missile and bring both into the water below. I was certain that her heated actions took these missiles out of her primitive mental arithmetic. To be on the safe side, I made one of the downed missiles explode underwater and guided the other to catch up to the plane from below. The plane's fuselage had been hastily repaired and wouldn't be able to take a direct hit.

Amy was too preoccupied with the missiles tailing the plane to notice my ingenious tactic. The Egg-O-Matic spun around its axis to release a flurry of projectiles in seemingly random directions to further confuse my opponents. Tails' mood took a visible dive when he saw that I was determined to finish what I started. Soon, his morale would sink to the bottom together with his plane.

I had a good laugh. The battlefield was under my total control. Those pests thought they were making a difference, but they were wrong, dead wrong. Since I orchestrated this battle, they merely reacted in a predictable fashion to the inputs I provided them. The conclusion would be the same regardless of their actions: my win and their loss.

The Egg-O-Matic closed in on the plane from the side to prevent Tails from getting his emotions under wraps. Despite his scientific credentials, he had the psyche of a disturbed, fickle limpet. Seeing Sonic unconscious put him under tremendous pressure and seeing me, a threat as grand as the sun, grinning from ear to ear in his face, would break him.

Come on, fox boy. Look at me. I hurt your idol…and I am going to hurt you.

I waved at him. He refused to face me, but the way his mouth twitched told me that he saw me in his peripheral vision. What kind of expression would he make when the missile I guided up from the water destroys his flying piece of junk?

My craft shook as I pondered goading him some more. Numerous warnings lit up on my dashboard. Collision? Fire damage? What in the world?!

I scanned Tails' plane and noticed two things missing. One, the plane was not in pieces. Two, Amy was not on the plane.

The Egg-O-Matic took another hit. It was a pounding noise below, where the missile tubes were. The weight of the craft has increased slightly and there was a Chaos Interference alert. The systems were obviously beginning to malfunction because that specific alert was designed for a clump of concentrated Chaos Energy on par with Sonic or greater, the likes of which I had pre-emptively incapacitated.

Amy had the guts to board my personal craft and I would make sure she saw what those guts looked like herself. I fired off my missiles to smoke her out. The result was a series of explosions that pushed me out of my seat. I broke out in a cold sweat when I realised what it meant: that little rodent damaged the missile tubes, causing a misfire. The system warnings confirmed it.

The weight balance was shifting; Amy was moving up on the craft. I had to stop her at all costs. The Egg-O-Matic spun like a hurricane to shake her off. I got dizzy, but she still held on. Plan B was in order.

I couldn't allow her to reach the cockpit, so I diverted most of the missiles remaining in flight to catch her off guard. She would be too focused on venting her anger on me to notice them.

My personal craft was sturdy. The protective dome would still survive a hit from one of my own missiles in its current state, so I would be safe even if worse came to worst.

When she rose into view, she was a beautiful sight. Bloody, ripped clothes, a face that would have been howling in pain if it weren't for the seething rage about me outsmarting her like a chump. That's right, Amy. I did this and you were powerless to stop me.

She clutched the handle of the hammer hard enough to make a dent on the surface. It was the first time I saw her inflict damage on her own silly tool. I must have gotten her good. I promised myself to take note of her facial expression and see if I could force her friends to emulate it in their final moments.

Not that her struggles mattered. Plumes of smoke came into view, warheads gleaming in the sun as I primed them to scoop her off the surface and chain hits in the air one after the other. Amy wouldn't know what hit her, but I would.

Me!

She had been lucky when she noticed the missile I had sent underwater to blow up Tails' plane. Hitching a ride on one of my own armaments to reach my craft required some agility, but this was where her story would end. One needed brains to trump my plans and this pink rodent didn't have any. She was underestimating me if she thought she could match my tactical prowess.

Just as the missile aimed at her feet was about to dislodge her, Amy dashed to the other side of the dome. The missile hit my craft and exploded. Panicking, I had to quickly divert the other missiles I had sent her way to prevent blowing myself up in the process.

She thumped the dome with her hammer and used the momentum to catch up with one of the missiles I hadn't finished rerouting. It was a suicidal move because I could remotely detonate any missile, but, in the heat of the battle, I seemed to have forgotten which missile was which. Rather than play a guessing game and let my opponent recuperate, I decided to detonate all of them and solve the problem this way.

In a repeated stroke of luck, Amy hammered the missiles nearest to her, propelling them towards the Egg-O-Matic, and assumed a defensive position as explosions lit up the sky.

The protective dome spiderwebbed from edge to edge. My vision was now effectively blocked. A jolt and a heavy knocking sound replaced the warning messages: my craft was boarded by an angry-angry hedgehog. Forget blowing up Tails' plane. I didn't even have the luxury of taking a dive to pick up the pieces of the Master Emerald.

It looked like I had to solve this matter myself. I reached out for a sidearm powered by an artificial Chaos Emerald and prepared to show Amy the error of her ways. She should have stopped while she was ahead. Now, her empty head would pay the price.

The instance I saw her silhouette in the smoke, I pulled the trigger. The discharge made a hole in the protective dome, but Amy managed to dodge the shot by crouching. I tried firing at her feet only to have her jump off the spot I was aiming at.

I had to get rid of the glass dome to get a clear shot at her, yet she didn't even let me do that much. After headbutting the dome several times, she weakened the material to the point it could no longer hold up its own weight.

With a crashing sound, pieces of glass fell on my face. I saw Amy standing tall in front of me. She was breathing heavily and it was obvious that she didn't have much fight left in her, but she had the resolve to avenge her friends.

Our eyes stayed perfectly still as we glared daggers at each other for a few seconds. The one to make the first move would be victorious.

Try as she might, it was my battlefield and I decided the pace. Without my input, she was nobody.

However, that particular nobody was holding a hammer uncomfortably close to my face. If I increased the distance between us, I could safely aim and shoot her with my gun.

The stupid hedgehog wouldn't be able to track my swift fingerwork. With a few presses, I would turn the craft upside-down and have gravity take care of the rest. The seatbelt was a useful invention.

I glanced down at the controls I needed to execute my plan and saw her hammer punch a hole in the dashboard.

What?

"What?" she asked.

"'What?'" I replied.

I was flabbergasted by her performance. Somehow, Amy tracked my movements and prevented me from executing my plan. If I didn't come up with something soon, my face would be next in line to incur her wrath.

Like on cue, she struck the hammer against my scalp. The force of the impact made the world around me go dark for a spell. I repeatedly fired my gun while my vision recovered, but the absence of yelps and begging told me that I missed every shot.

The next time she swung her hammer I heard a crunching sound. Breathing got difficult all of a sudden. I could ignore the malfunction warnings blaring on the broken dashboard, but machine pain paled in comparison to the anguish of my flesh. I didn't need diagnostics to know that the rim of my nose was in an unusual shape and that blood was dripping down.

Fixing myself would take some effort. However, it was nothing compared to the benefits I was reaping right now. The longer I stalled Amy here, the more likely it was that Sonic would die. Knuckles could be patched up and I avoided going all-out on him, so he could save me the trouble of reassembling the Master Emerald. Sonic, on the other hand… Heh-heh. It took a good deal of blunt force and negative Chaos Energy to knock him out. As long as that energy stayed inside of him, the resulting corrosion would lead to organ failure. If I took away their hero, their resistance would ebb along with their hopes.

By the time they realised that they needed a Chaos Emerald or a good replica to absorb the poisonous energy, it would be too late for anything other than a funeral.

That was when I found my face planted in the dashboard. The pain from being hit with a hammer thrice came with a delay together with the realisation that Amy was gone, as was my Chaos Emerald-powered gun. This blow was not good for the shape of my nose. Ow.

It was safe to lift my face and look around, but I was no longer in the mood. Amy Rose experienced an unfathomable streak of good luck during this encounter. She intercepted my measures, my countermeasures…ruses, snares and deviltry with increasingly stunning accuracy. I needed to analyse this, take precautions and, when the preparations were complete, augment the strength of my nose.

Because we would meet again.

I disengaged a spy drone to keep an eye on Sonic's clique. Try as they might, I had the knowledge. I had the power. My victory was a matter of time.

In the meantime, I had to take care of a pressing matter: "Orbot, get to the medical bay. I have a concussion."

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Author's note: Subsequent chapters focus on Amy's POV. This is a content warning.


	2. Going Concern

Eggman has gone senile. He used to boast about his plans, but this time he went as far as to announce whatever little thing he was about to do. Not that Amy was complaining; if it weren't for his loose lips, she wouldn't have found the way to save Sonic.

The artificial Chaos Emerald she took from Eggman absorbed the negative energy that he had poisoned Sonic with. Sonic must have been particularly careless because Eggman had taken him hostage in a life-threatening manner.

Amy didn't mind being able to return the favour by having their roles switched once in a while, but the experience wasn't worth it if she could lose Sonic in the process. Ideally, he should have found himself locked up somewhere, so she could come and bust him out with her hammer. Amy had plenty of experience of being trapped in cages and various locked rooms. Most of the time, she could have easily broken out on her own, but she still offered Sonic the opportunity to be her hero. As the hero, Sonic was obviously thoughtful enough to consider granting her the opportunity to save him…just that he wasn't ready to take this important step. The day it happened Amy would be so happy she could die, and that would be no good. Amy had a feeling that Sonic preferred her alive, and she always pursued her feelings.

That was how she knew that she should hold Sonic close, remove his gloves and put the artificial Chaos Emerald in his hand. Her own gloves had to be discarded because Eggman's incessant attacks sullied them and she would never allow such unsightliness to approach her hero. If she could help it, she would have taken a bath and nursed him in a more comfortable setting, but this was a life-threatening situation.

She would explain everything that transpired while he was unconscious and extol her love for him until he agreed to forgive her for the transgression of approaching him in her sorry state. She was sure Sonic would understand. Sonic was amazing like that.

And now she could keep this amazing hedgehog warm while nursing him back to health. Sonic looked so peaceful in his sleep. Every night, Amy would pine for a chance to observe him napping. The dreams he was having gave her imagination wings. She would have gladly paid a life and a half to see the things he saw at night. A hero's dreams had to be something else and being there for him all the time would guarantee that they'd share every experience, leaving nothing undone or unsaid.

In truth, Sonic was undoubtedly dreaming about her every night. That was how much he loved her. Amy would wake up horrified whenever one of her dreams failed to include Sonic in an all-encompassing way, but this kind of thing never happened to Sonic on her watch; his face was serene, a reflection of his unwavering love for her. She was positive that he saw her in his dreams just like in broad daylight, only without the limitations of the cold, cruel world around them. Sonic's dreams were not distorted by the world. They were perfect. And, by finding a way inside them, she, too, would be perfect.

The healing was working. The Chaos Emerald let off a familiar glow and Sonic's bleeding slowed down. Tails didn't have the facilities to treat Sonic properly, which Amy found disgraceful, so it was on Tails' conscience that she had to rely on this one method to make Sonic feel better. Amy considered swallowing the emerald to use its power to heal Sonic through herself, but she was too timid to carry it out.

She had to steel herself to find the right words to greet him the moment he woke up and realised the situation he was in. Sonic was beginning to stir. It must have hurt to move, so she held him tight and positioned his head in a way that she could feel his every breath. It was the least she could do.

"I'm sorry, Tails," she heard him say. "I let my guard down."

Amy nodded to him and stroked his pale cheek. Blood loss gave it a distinctive colour that Amy couldn't help smiling about inwardly. A long nursing period was a must, and she would do her best to dispel his feverish mumbling, so he would recognise that it was his girlfriend, not Tails, who was there for him at his time of need.

"My hero," she whispered back to him and closed her eyes. The seating was uncomfortable, the wind was blowing in her face and she was shaking from the cold and exhaustion, but as long as Sonic was with her, none of that mattered.

"How's Knuckles doing?" Something with two tails that didn't matter asked about another thing that didn't matter. Amy could have neither peace nor quiet in this situation. It was appalling.

"How should I know? _You_ saved Knuckles," she said, careful to stress Tails' responsibility.

"H-ah. Doesn't she know I can't fly the plane and look after the wounded at the same time?"

How rude! If she weren't preoccupied with Sonic, she would have walked over there to give Tails a piece of her mind. The plane was designed for two people, yet Tails insisted on handing the single passenger seat to Knuckles, seeing that Amy wouldn't let go of Sonic. Amy believed that Knuckles would have been better off in the luggage compartment since he had already slid down from his seat.

Amy threw a sideways glance at Knuckles' features. "He's breathing."

"Anything else?"

Tails was suspiciously attentive to Knuckles. If the echidna learnt of this, he was bound to scold Tails for embarrassing him. The sole guardian of the Master Emerald didn't take kindly to exaggerated displays of empathy.

"I'm not sure. I'm checking Sonic's heart now."

"You mean his pulse?" she heard Tails ask her in an odd tone.

"I know what I said."

Tails turned around to look at her and perked an eye ridge. "Huh?"

He saw what she was up to. Amy has buried her fingers in the fuzzy softness of Sonic's chest. It was a habit of hers, so she knew how to brush the short bristled hair aside and improve the connection she had with his heart. It knew she was there and its soothing rhythm was proof. If it weren't for her own heart pounding like a drum and the on-looker interrupting a private moment, she would pressed harder to comfort Sonic and further reduce the distance between them.

"Sh-shoo. Eyes on the road…sky. Knuckles will be fine." Amy waved at Tails before turning away from him, careful not to miss a beat of Sonic's healing.

She heard Tails mutter: "Sonic is going to have a field day when he finds out."

Her face twitched at what that could mean. The potential misunderstanding would be detrimental to Sonic's health. That she could not allow.

"Tails?" she began.

"What?"

"Thank you."

Tails didn't reveal it at first, but her gesture clearly shocked him. "Wow! It's rare for Amy to recognise my contribution. What happened to Sonic must have seriously shaken her… I guess I'll break the news to him slowly. We couldn't have done it without her."

Such honesty was refreshing. At least, he wasn't going to interfere with her plan for Sonic's recovery.

Tails provided the basics while Amy handled the rest–Sonic's rest. She was proud of that pun. Sonic made plenty of puns and they always put her in a good mood. It was no surprise his talent for puns grew on her. They were that close already and now she had another way to make him smile.

She sighed dreamily at the memory of his smile. The temptation to turn off and let her imagination loose was palpable, but so was Sonic's hand. She hadn't released it since entering the makeshift infirmary. Amy felt that it was her duty to heal Sonic to the best of her ability.

No, it was her duty to go past her limit in healing him and rekindle his admiration for her in the process. Being unconscious was the worst. It cut out a part of one's life, hampering the experience of loving and being loved. Amy loved Sonic and he loved her, but his love could not progress while he was out cold. His love was frozen in time while he remained in this pitiful state.

Amy pressed her hand against his to coax the Chaos Emerald placed in-between to do its magic quicker. Colour was starting to return to Sonic's cheeks, which showed that Amy was doing the right thing. She knew what was good for her boyfriend. After all, she knew him well.

This knowledge always gave her a peace of mind. Seeing how tranquil he looked like right now, Sonic was sure to agree because he knew her well also. She was caring, attentive and dedicated to her hero. He trusted her. In fact, he has already entrusted her with his life, a closely guarded secret that only a heart overflowing with love could uncover. Because of this, everything he did made sense to her. Her own actions merely followed his lead.

"My hero," she mouthed noiselessly as she took her unoccupied hand to trace the rim of his ear, careful not to disturb the healing. Having obtained plenty of practice while tagging along with him around the world, she had his reaction thresholds down to a tee. The temptation to cross one of them by stroking inside his ear was there, but Amy would bear it. Love was best shared and it wouldn't have felt as nice for her to play with him whilst he had no way of responding to her advances. Her love would grow and his would stay the same.

Amy hadn't realised that she scared herself with that mental image and was now biting her lip. It would be her duty to bring Sonic up to speed after his lapse in consciousness. He was the hero and she wouldn't dare to question the right for his love to tower over and nurture hers for an extensive period of time. Without his guidance, her love would be lost and directionless, inert. Yuck!

Commotion out the window distracted her. She heard a bunch of high-pitched complaints before a yellow two-tailed fox intruded on Sonic's healing time by entering through the window like a thief. Tails stared at her for a moment and pointed accusingly, his finger shaking. He was biting his mouth to stay quiet and keep his irritation in check.

"You-you…leech! I knew this would happen if I let you have your way. You locked me out in my own property, ignored my knocking, banging and pleading, so you better have a good excuse because I am…so far…on the edge." Tails took a deep breath and closed his eyes as if resisting great pressure.

Amy blinked in confusion. It was shocking to hear such an admission. Tails was normally much more collected than this, but she understood where he was coming from. Tails cared about Sonic and was anxious about being unable to see him. Perhaps, the tacit agreement she had reached with Tails was too much for him: since Amy recovered the artificial Chaos Emerald, she was in charge of Sonic's healing and her patient should not have been disturbed by outsiders. More importantly, she hadn't noticed any knocking or attempts to enter until Tails flew in. She was too focused on the matter at hand.

"Oh! I'm so sorry, Tails. I, umm, got lost in thought." Amy looked at Sonic as she spoke and realised her hands were still preoccupied with him. Warmth spilled over her cheeks for reasons unknown to her.

Tails gaped at her, his head shaking in disbelief. His attitude towards her was clear and she would have to intervene fast if she wanted to avoid quarrelling with Tails in Sonic's presence. Amy had to make a sacrifice for her boyfriend's sake.

She raised her face to look straight at Tails. "I love him. When I see him like this, he fills me and I space out from the rest. You understand, right?" She pulled on Sonic's arm, bringing it closer to her chest, and clasped it between her hands.

"No."

Amy smiled at what she heard. Tails was a friend and it would have been beautiful if he understood her feelings for Sonic, but he was young and still had a lot to learn, so it wouldn't hurt her much to explain the obvious. Sonic had once asked her to imagine what it would be like in another person's shoes and she frequently exercised his suggestion. That was how she improved her understanding of Sonic.

Tails, on the other hand, was inscrutable. No one could know what he was on about unless he explicitly stated it himself. Amy guessed that he wasn't ready to tell her yet. She had to try again.

"No? I'm sorry, I see I'm not making much sense to you… How should I put this…umm." She paused and let go of Sonic completely. The emptiness that washed over her formulated the right words. Tails was clever, so there was no way that he hadn't reached this conclusion himself, meaning that he intended for her to feel this emptiness inside. Amy gripped the hem of her skirt as a sense of loss took hold. "A moment later and I would have been too late to have this."

There was an audible whine from Tails. "I'm sorry, Amy, I didn't mean to!" He fidgeted on the spot, unable to decide whether to approach her and make amends this way, eventually opting to stay on the spot, facing away in embarrassment. "I just… Knuckles has it bad. I wanted to ask if you could hand the Chaos Emerald to him."

"Of course!" Amy saw no problem with the request and offered the jewel to Tails. He was worried about his close friend Knuckles, an attitude she found admirable. Though, the confusion he expressed when he realised her intention–having him leave with the emerald to attend to Knuckles–didn't sit well with Amy. If he cared about Knuckles so much that he chose to risk disturbing Sonic, he should have thanked her and gone over to his patient immediately.

"I'll watch over Sonic for now. _He needs professional care, not a possessive fangirl pretending to be a nurse._"

Amy thought her ears were failing her. Tails appeared to have said something outrageous after shutting his mouth. His attitude has been going down for a while now and Amy was worried about what could have caused this sudden change. Even if he was rattled by the possibility of losing Sonic, he should have stayed strong for his sake like a good friend.

Before Amy got the chance to address the issue, her concentration shattered: Sonic's eyelids slowly rose, bestowing the sight of his dazzling green irises upon the world. The hero was back. Order to Amy's life was restored at last.

"Sonic!" she squeaked excitedly. She had missed him so much she was ready to pounce at any second.

She was stopped dead in her tracks when he started screaming sooner than he regained focus. It was an uncharacteristic panic fit that clashed with his outer calm. Tails didn't seem to be surprised by it; he didn't react to it in any shape or form all the while Sonic continued screaming.

The blue hedgehog wouldn't stop panicking until he spotted Tails next to her and opened his mouth to speak. "Ah, Amy. What's up?"

By then, Amy realised that something was seriously amiss. The joys of a reunion would have to wait. She had to figure things out if she wanted to keep Sonic safe.

"I'm going…to check on Knuckles now."

Amy heard two people sigh in relief once she said that even though neither Sonic nor Tails showed a visible reaction. Was the stress getting to her? Was she going insane?


	3. Discomfort Zone

"Aaaaaaaargh."

The echo of Sonic's scream continued ringing in Amy's head for a while after she had left the room. It contrasted with the peaceful conversation that she eavesdropped on from behind the door. Sonic was back to normal as soon as she went out of sight and he was having fun with Tails.

Why didn't Amy get to have fun with Sonic? She called dibs! She saved him and came up with his treatment plan while Tails' role was that of a mere courier. The disparity made no sense, leading Amy to the conclusion that Sonic was unwell and the issue was easier to approach for a stranger than a lover. Amy was aware of cases when people preferred to open up to those they didn't have a meaningful relationship with. It was sad to see Sonic experience one such case, but she would endure it for his sake.

She felt funny as she moved away from Sonic's room. She had imagined that it would have hurt her more, but there was consolation in knowing that Sonic's physical condition recognised how close they were…and that Tails was the stranger.

Spending some quiet time with Knuckles didn't sound too bad, either. She could uninterruptedly daydream about Sonic and the things they would do together once he recovered. This premise made her world spin faster, cheery colours abound. Sonic was her everything, and, for as long as she could have him, her dream was fulfilled as an extension of reality.

Upon immediate inspection, Tails had given Knuckles a comprehensive gauze and bandage treatment, making it difficult to see the actual echidna hidden underneath all the white. Discarded rolls and the strong smell of disinfectant hinted at the amount of work that put him in such a state.

Knuckles had taken a hit for the team, a hit from the Master Emerald, no less. It must have been hard to see his deity manipulated by Eggman and be powerless to stop the villain, but Knuckles was a survivor. He had pulled through worse scuffles and this was just a small episode in his life as a guardian. The worst was over, Amy has come to keep him company and she brought a Chaos Emerald to speed up the healing process. She wasn't sure how it worked exactly, but she understood the general principle: Chaos Energy was a source of great power, Sonic and his friends needed to sustain a certain amount of it to go about their daily business. Fights depleted this energy whilst staying close to a jewel charged with Chaos replenished their reserves quicker.

Chaos Energy affected Amy to some extent. She has never given it much thought because she just did what came naturally and took cues from her surroundings. Even if she concerned herself with the technical details, like Tails did, she wasn't going to gain anything of value from it. Tails has been studying Chaos Energy for years, yet he still relied on his two tails to assist others.

Amy was happy that she had one tail, just like Sonic. Getting another one in exchange for a flying ability looked nice on the surface, but the chafing, stamina drain and males other than Sonic looking up her skirt while she transported them was a bad trade. Her hammer ability was much better in this respect. With the hammer, she could jump higher than any one of her friends and beat opponents to a pulp while maintaining the air of a dignified lady. After all, Amy was saving her graces for Sonic.

Hence, her exile to Knuckles' room was kind of a waste. She couldn't talk to the echidna about Sonic while he remained unconscious, nor could she practice her skills in such a cramped place. Come to think of it, even if Knuckles was awake, she'd be stuck entertaining his one-track mind. Knuckles' defining trait was his attachment to the Master Emerald. Amy found it an unhealthy and unproductive obsession because an inanimate object–no offence to inanimate objects–was unable to respond to one's affection or reach a happily ever after.

It would have been sad if Sonic became an inanimate object. Amy would, of course, still love him like no tomorrow, yet his own love would be barred from growing. Would he be able to recognise this fatal flaw in such a state? The terrible prospect brought a tear to Amy's eye as she pondered how she would be able to solve his problem. Looking at Knuckles, she realised that in his coma he was remarkably similar to the Master Emerald. They were both inanimate, frozen in time…perfectly balanced!

She huffed excitedly at the conclusion. Artificial comas were a thing, and this solution would help her relate to Sonic and align the pace of her feelings with his in case he turned into an inanimate object. Sonic was bound to praise her if he found out what she came up with. Amy was a genius.

"Blargh." Knuckles appeared to have woken up. A spot of red appeared on the bandages near his mouth as he coughed. His breathing was uneven, wheezing, and he made a panicked expression when he learnt that he couldn't move his body.

"Relax. We won."

Between coughs, he mustered out a barely audible question: "Master…Emerald?"

He was staring at her expectantly. A single word could sway his mood to either extreme. In the state he was in, he could not afford worrying.

"We took it back from Eggman. You did well."

He shook, unable to formulate a response. Was he unprepared to hear any good news? More crimson spittle came out as he laboured to speak. Tails seemed to have patched up his body, but he could do little about internal bleeding. Knuckles should not have exerted himself until the Chaos Emerald finished doing its part.

"Shh. Take it easy," she cooed. Her chastity belonged to Sonic, so words of encouragement was as far as she could go with Knuckles. Plus, his empathy was directed towards the Master Emerald alone and he reacted unpredictably to physical contact. Hugs and petting were ill-advised.

Knuckles remained tense. His eyes darted from one side to the other. He wasn't screaming like Sonic, but it was clear to her that recent events disturbed his mind. The rigid mental cage, in which he had sealed his sense of self, hurt him deeply. Both the cage and its contents suffered from strain that time could not heal. If Knuckles carried on like this without taking care of himself, the cracks that he has unwittingly shown her in private would get too big for him to hide out in the open. Knuckles had to take it easy for a while to avoid breaking what could not be fixed.

Eventually, she heard a coherent reply: "Am I… Is this death?" He sounded strangely calm despite the gravity of the question.

Amy tilted her head to the side, eyeing him with clinical curiosity. She should have cared more about Knuckles' state. She wanted to care more, but she was preoccupied with Sonic, just like Knuckles was preoccupied with his inanimate object. As such, it was fair for her not to feel guilty about her curiosity.

"No, you're alive."

He grimaced as he tried to respond only to swallow hard and take a few short breaths. Communicating was too painful for now.

"Try not to speak. You're hurt. You'll feel better soon, though."

She had placed the fake Chaos Emerald on his chest, but its effect seemed to be weaker than in Sonic's case. Eggman had mentioned that Knuckles would pull through, making Amy question the necessity of bringing the jewel to Knuckles in the first place. The Master Emerald had a complicated relationship with Chaos Emeralds, apparently.

"Am I dreaming?" she heard him ask in the same tone.

Amy took her time to reply. Knuckles found it difficult to accept reality. He should have been glad about surviving Eggman's attack. Had their roles been reversed and he acted as Amy's saviour, she would have expressed her gratitude by now. Knuckles, in contrast, remained in the suffocating comfort of his mental cage. His reasoning raised questions, but Amy decided to spare him for now. He was a patient and it was better for everyone if he remained peaceful.

"No, you're wide awake, I think."

"_Huh?_"

Amy blinked. Was her answer unclear? "Hmm?"

"_You can…hear me?_" she heard him ask. Amy paid attention to his jaw. It remained perfectly still.

"Yeah. What's so surprising about that?" The uneasiness she had felt while Sonic was screaming at her returned with a vengeance as she went over her own question. She distinctively heard Knuckles' voice, but it hadn't come out of his throat. It was just there, in her head, akin to music from a pair of headphones.

"_Ah, I thought I was hallucinating. This is much easier than talking. Thanks, Amy_."

The longer she thought about it and studied Knuckles' idle posture, the more confused she became. This was already causing her a headache.

"You are wel…come."

She had to take a breather. Originally, she assumed that Knuckles' company would help her make sense of her own thoughts, but the opposite happened and now she found herself retreating to the door.

Knuckles' eyes were closed and there was no telling if he paid attention to what was going on, yet she couldn't just leave a sick person.

Amy mustered up her courage and asked, "Is there anything else I can help you with?"

"_Tell Sonic that he's up for a knuckle sandwich. And…if he shows his face near the shrine ever again, I'll make it a double_."

Hearing that gave Amy a strange sense of relief. She was relieved to learn that Knuckles was back to his old reckless self, a vestige of normality. Amy did not like that it was normal for Knuckles to act this way because it had put him where he was now, but it was a form of consolation, all things considered. The strange part was the method of their communication. An outsider would have only heard Amy talking to herself and she didn't believe that proving otherwise would make her any easier to accept.

Her heart sank at the thought that insanity was preferable: she feared having gone insane moments ago and now she feared the contrary. Knuckles' obliviousness about the situation added fuel to her worries.

"How about I say you're expecting an apology," she stated in the end.

"_Yes. An apology to his face. Wham! Very good._" Knuckles enunciated the special effects in his reply. It left the impression of whimsy rather than anger.

Amy chalked it up to boyish shenanigans that she was all too familiar with. The heavily bandaged echidna was livelier than he looked. Therefore, he should do okay for a while in her absence.

She had left Sonic's room in disgrace and it would have taken special self-motivation to get back in there the way she was now. The conversation with Knuckles, however, offered her an opportunity she could not refuse. She was Knuckles' messenger and she had a feeling that Sonic would enjoy her message. Amy always pursued her feelings.

The screaming restarted the very moment Sonic spotted her shade of pink in the doorway. She interrupted small talk between Sonic and Tails and, judging from the way they were staring at her, the screams that she heard were in her head. They intensified when she entered the room proper.

"Happy to see me?" she asked innocently.

Sonic made a nervous laugh that only Amy could hear.

Tails nodded without breathing a word. "_Good joke._"

Amy sighed at the silent treatment and ran her hand through her hair nonchalantly to let them know that their attitude wasn't getting to her. When the screaming died down, she went ahead with her point: "Knuckles woke up. He asked you to come ASAP and receive your, quote, knuckle sandwiches, unquote."

She may have allowed herself some liberty in interpreting Knuckles' message, but it was up to them to decipher the original meaning. Since Knuckles held Sonic accountable, he intended to serve both knuckle sandwiches to Sonic. If her phrasing made Tails uncomfortable as the secondary culprit, she would encourage him to see Knuckles and clear his name. Naturally, Sonic would have to stay in the room with Amy while Tails did his moral duty.

Sonic reacted first. He flexed his arms and did a small windmill even though his face betrayed that he was in pain. "Better not get rusty. A brawl it is!" He was about to get up when Amy pulled out her hammer.

She stood in the way between him and the door. Her sideways stance would make for a comfortable swing. With a huff, she threatened, "Why don't you rest some, Mr Hedgehog? You've caused enough trouble for one day and I don't think you're ready to face the world in the state you're in. Right, Tails?"

"_Am I your fall guy now?_"

Amy's glare telegraphed her intentions to Tails before he could protest in a way that Sonic would notice.

Tails buckled under her pressure, "I'll go talk to him." As he was about to leave the room, he made a mysterious smirk. Other than Tails, only Amy knew its meaning: "_And sedate him before he breaks my stuff again."_

Everything was going exactly as Amy planned. Almost. Kind of.

Sonic resumed screaming when he realised that he was left alone with Amy. His lips were sealed, the environment didn't register any noise, which confirmed that the screaming was in her head, and probably his. Yes, Sonic was definitely screaming inside because his injuries he sustained on the outside made him vulnerable inside. It was easy for Amy to come to terms with his internal anguish. In fact, it offered certain possibilities.

The connection she shared with Sonic just got deeper. Much deeper. And only Amy was aware of it. This screaming that she heard was a sign of something precious, a secret meant to be guarded with utmost…secrecy. Not even Sonic should find out about it. If his thinking was like hers from moments ago, he would discard her words as a crazy person's ravings and their relationship would deteriorate. It would take weeks for things to go back to normal and Amy did not have any time to waste. Sonic remained her boyfriend for too long without taking the next logical step, a marriage proposal.

Her eyes must have lit up with enough glee for it to be visible on the outside because Sonic's screams got louder. Amy blushed at the possibility of him becoming aware of an unsightly part of her, which exacerbated the noise. She had to get things under wraps before Sonic caused a misunderstanding and hurt himself.

Approaching him was a game of testing his diminishing comfort zone. Sonic was sensitive to Amy's presence–a fact of love that Amy was proud of–and he would react nigh explosively after she breached a certain distance. Since they were in a room, she had to forcibly adjust his comfort zone at a pace that kept him on the spot. Amy knew that if she rushed things, her attempt would backfire because Sonic liked taking things slowly. He was an incurable romantic.

Amy suppressed a sigh. It was painful to suppress, but she endured. She knew that Sonic was teetering; he no longer had the energy to scream. Sonic was wound up with anticipation, like a coiled spring.

To loosen him up little by little, she opted to sit on a chair next to the bed with her arms folded. This increased the amount of psychological distance between them and obscured the fact that she was physically closer to him than if she were to sit on the edge of the bed. Sonic's psyche was fragile after the battle and it had to be protected at all costs.

She ignored Sonic's nervous fidgeting until he noticed an unexpected detail, "_Did somebody tie me to the bed?_"

The screaming was amping back up, which prompted Amy to intervene: "Oh, I tied you to the bed, for your own safety. You broke nearly every bone in your body."

A deafening silence spread in the room. Amy's imagination was working overtime to help prevent any misunderstandings Sonic may have just encountered while Sonic's mind appeared to have frozen over. The fact he neither moved nor said anything in a way only she could hear hinted that he was, as a matter of fact, frozen. A computer would have had to be restarted in such a situation, but she hoped to avoid pressing Sonic's off switch. She preferred having an entertaining conversation with him and that was hard to do if he were to lose consciousness again.

"Thanks, I guess," he said flatly.

Amy had to give him props. Albeit she pined for Sonic expressing his open-mindedness this way, he could have easily chastised her for what she did. Honestly and embarrassingly, it was the first time she tied him up and he was okay with it. Both were a first: her succeeding at tying him up and him being okay with it, a double achievement. Amy exercised tremendous will power to contain the colour of her cheeks.

Encouraged by this success, Amy decided to strike while the iron was hot. She would have him confess his love for her.

"Sonic, do you hate me now?"

On the surface, it was a follow up to his half-hearted words of gratitude. However, Amy was aware that the situation was unprecedented in ways neither she nor Sonic openly acknowledged yet, so the confession had to be handled in a specific way.

Three seconds passed in complete silence. Amy broke it with a smile.

"What's so funny?" he asked, dumbfounded.

"The three-second rule." She leaned forward for a kiss, her lips puckered. He fidgeted to the side, but he couldn't get far while tied up waist-down. By the time he considered protesting, it was all over and Amy had left her mark on his cheek. "If you can't say it in three seconds, you don't mean it." Since he didn't hate her, he loved her. To bits!

Sonic didn't seem to be listening, still brooding on his trauma. "_I should be able to make my escape if I spindash through the door. Tails wouldn't mind since it's an emergency._"

Amy was _this_ close to him. If she let go of self-restraint, their bodies would collide at the speed of light guided by gravity alone, and they had the power of love to top it off. Retreating now was inexcusable, yet there was no other way. To get Sonic where she was, she had to address his insecurities that the battle with Eggman uncovered.

Slowly and regretfully, Amy backed away. Her hands balled up into fists to repel Sonic's natural attraction. Sonic was tied up, so he was not at risk of flying her way like a powerful magnet. Perhaps, it was a good idea to ask Tails to tie her to the chair and keep Sonic company this way. She was certain Sonic would consent, so she didn't need to ask him.

"Comfy?"

Sonic did not respond. He eyed her carefully, then, closed his eyes and reopened them in shock. "_Come ooon…emergency. Any second now…_"

Amy blinked in confusion. Was he…tempting her? It was true that she could acquire a burst of speed and bridge the distance between them while his eyes remained closed, but she preferred to let him see the entire process.

"_Any second…now?" _Sonic blinked. He took longer than before. _"What about now?" _Seeing that she was still sitting on the chair despite his efforts seemed to disappoint him. _"I'll close my eyes, she'll jump at me and then–freedom!"_

The exercise amused Amy. If she could afford to giggle, she would have, but she didn't want to be mean to Sonic. On the one hand, she could give him the gratification of being right and doing what he expected of her. On the other hand, she cared about his wellbeing to a fault. She suppressed her desires in order to keep him safe.

To make her point clear, she crossed her legs and glared at him, imagining Tails in his stead to keep a straight face, "What are you doing?"

"Uhh…_Work it brain. You can do it._" He raised his arms warily and said, "Stretching."

"You can't stretch while you're all tied up." Amy stood up. Sonic just gave her a brilliant idea. As expected of her boyfriend!

"_Here it comes, the emergency. Ah, what are you doing! Why are you lifting the-"_

With a single swipe, she removed the covers and let Sonic see how securely he was fastened. This was not her full intention, however.


	4. Spice

Amy proceeded to undo the ropes until Sonic was free before placing the cover back where it was.

The experience made her weak in the knees. Prior to laying him down, she had removed whatever remained of his clothes, leaving him in his full, unobstructed glory. Amy had resorted to motivational chants in her head to retain the sight of the goal rather than her own impulses. Previously she had successfully tempered her resolve with the image of two magnets colliding and breaking to pieces, unable to accommodate the forces compelling their union.

Her heart was more difficult to convince this time. There was a chance that everything would be fine if she just let go. Self-restraint put her under tremendous pressure. Since Sonic, too, was experiencing this heartache from his side, her refusal to indulge was causing him more pain. Rather than let love be her guide, she selfishly gave in to fear, uncertainty and doubt. The outcome made everyone unhappy.

She had miscalculated. As such, Amy was guilty of not showing him her love to the best of her ability. She knew exactly what she had to do to alleviate that guilt: relinquish her fear and let love take over.

The logic of the heart was flawless. Amy didn't have the courage to try refuting it, which meant that she has already conceded wronging Sonic and was aware of the right method of atonement. However, she had no obligation to adhere to logic, a perplexing trait that saved her skin in unlikely situations.

Revisiting the temptation with him being conscious of her actions risked overwhelming her already strained faculties. Her thoughts and feelings were in agreement that it would be exceptionally gratifying to smother Sonic and that Sonic would agree to the experience. What reason did Amy have to put aside such an obvious fact?

Amy exhaled. This both alarmed and confused Sonic, but it was a misunderstanding on his part. Amy was frustrated with herself. Above all else was her long-term goal. She was doing it for Sonic's health. Right now, he was her patient and both of them had to respect this temporary if regrettable status. The suffering born from this respect was an investment for their bright future together. It would become a fun memory worth revisiting later on.

"There. Happy now?" she asked. Sonic was no longer tied to the bed, so he could recuperate in greater comfort. His safety was compromised somewhat since he would fidget more and risk reopening his wounds, but Amy had determined the risk to be acceptable.

A lot of things looked acceptable to her now that the image of him lying bare in front of her was firmly imprinted into her brain. The bedsheets obstructing the view were a detail her imagination could easily overlook. Amy saw what mattered the most, and, with her newfound power, she could also hear what mattered the most.

"_Mhm._"

Admittedly, Sonic's internal silence exceeded her expectations. The hedgehog had a knack for acting without thinking. To be more precise, he acted on impulse and the timing of his thoughts coincided with his actions.

Sonic tried to get up all of a sudden. Having overestimated his strength, he lost balance, keeled to the side and was about to plant his face on the floor when Amy hopped over to cushion his fall.

"Careful! You can't run away from me if you break your legs, can you?" she asked after catching him and making sure that he wouldn't go further in the wrong direction. If he chanced a spindash with his present posture, Amy estimated that his head could end up making a hole in the ceiling.

Amy, then, realised that she has lost focus and said too much. To hide her embarrassment, she pushed Sonic back onto the mattress and waited for him to take care of the rest. Eventually, Sonic conceded, but he had already caught up to the message behind her words and was not going to let it go. Amy grumbled under her breath while hoping that he wouldn't pursue the matter as she watched his expression change.

"You…know I want to run away?"

She nodded. Sonic paid little attention to semantics, so reading into the phrasing was probably meaningless, but Amy went there and got her pride injured. Despite cushioning his fall, he was still eager to leave her company.

"_Am I that obvious?"_

Sonic's lips didn't move as he asked this question, a sign that it was a part of his internal dialogue. Reacting to it would raise more questions than Amy was comfortable answering, which prompted Amy to also stay silent. She even averted her gaze to make it less obvious; using the smallest of clues Sonic could read her better than anyone.

"_Okay. This is awkward. Why isn't she tackling me yet? What is she up to? Wait…does this mean she's done something weird to me while I was out and-_"

If Amy didn't know better, she would have considered Sonic's line of thinking a provocation. The truth was more depressing: following Sonic's loss in the previous battle with Eggman, his trust towards Amy has deteriorated.

Amy was acting in Sonic's best interest the entire time. There was nothing remotely weird about it.

Not that she could blame him about having doubts. Amy already knew the taste of failure, so it didn't hurt much. For a hero like Sonic, the result of the battle was a serious blow. His desire to leave and brood over it in solitude was understandable.

However, Amy couldn't help feeling bitter about concluding their brief conversation here. What he had told her was enough to give him food for thought further down the line. He has carelessly left her with plenty to process.

Amy turned to leave. "You're welcome."

"Wait! Stop!"

An immediate reaction! She barely made a step towards the door and he called out to her. Amy's heart would have skipped a beat if it weren't intent on catching Sonic's every move as the situation unfolded. Like before, Amy had to exercise great willpower to keep herself together and not lose track of her goal.

"Why? Would you stop if I asked you to?" she asked without turning around to face him.

"Yes."

_Ah._ Amy suppressed a yelp at how quickly he rounded her. Competing desires vied for the chance to reach the surface and be communicated to Sonic. Fainting, subdued by Sonic's smooth talk, was one of them, but it would have caused a misunderstanding. Frolicking gleefully or pretending that he could not trifle with her regardless of circumstances were valid options.

She already stopped per Sonic's request and spent too much time considering her options, invariably cutting them off one by one. Amy couldn't leave like that, nor could she afford a leap into his arms.

Pouting as she turned on her heel to face him again, arms on her sides, she asked: "Why would you do that?"

Her expression quivered when she realised that he had been worried about her. Thankfully, the look in his eyes didn't last long because the internal screaming returned. Amy's pout must have been more expressive than she had intended it to be and it took a toll on his psyche.

"_Emergency! Time to juice!_"

Before he could get up and put himself in harm's way again, Amy pulled out her hammer and swung it around its axis in the air to telegraph her resolve. Sonic gulped.

"Because…" he began. Normally, such a pause would mean that the one speaking was picking his words carefully. Sonic was different: he took the initiative without a plan and was now plummeting in a mental void. Words were failing him.

"_Because I care about you_."

Amy's eyes glistened at what she heard in her head. Losing self-control in such a fashion was another mistake on her part, which she soon came to regret. The silence on Sonic's end intensified.

"Because?" she coaxed him. She had already heard what he was trying to say and she was so ecstatic about it she could explode like a firework there and then, but she had to do this right.

Sonic had to say it out loud. From Amy's perspective, it would be the same as him saying it the second time, which was even better.

Reality delivered comeuppance. Sonic's stature loosened, his eyelids closed and his head fell down on the cushion. Dramatic snoring ensued.

Amy was glad that he stopped screaming internally. Though, hearing him snore out loud on top of hearing him plan more snores in his head perplexed Amy. He was dedicated to this means of escaping confrontation with her, a decision she had to respect as her lapse in self-control was to blame. She had gotten too excited in plain view.

Since Amy didn't want to lower his confidence in his acting skills, she returned to his side, close enough for her presence to be felt, yet far enough for her breath not to tickle his ear. The snoring paused for a moment; he was listening carefully.

"I know you can't hear me, so I'll tell you this: I care about you. I also worry about you. With that in mind, you should either take care of yourself better and avoid excessive danger or let others take care of you more. A lot of people depend on you being there. You should take responsibility."

When the snoring resumed, Amy knew it was her cue to retreat. Albeit she was curious to hear Sonic's response, she wouldn't try to pull it out of him. By the time she got to the door, Sonic gave her something new to work on.

"_I'm hungry_."

The way to a hero's heart was through his stomach. Amy quietly thanked Sonic for the reminder, which doubled as a prompt to strengthen their bonds. Albeit she had mixed feelings about the issue, they coalesced into heat that lifted the corners of her lips. There was embarrassment that it has been a while since she last cooked for him underneath the glee about Sonic taking the initiative to guide her efforts.

Sonic wanted her to feed him, to fuel his strength and by doing so share his next heroic achievement with her. It was so thoughtful of him that Amy spaced out several times while changing outfits. The prospect of suddenly presenting herself and her cooking to him was simply too great to bear, but she had to do her best. After all, Sonic made this request in a way only she could hear. If it were a case of mere hunger, he would have said so out loud or even informed Tails, but he didn't. He wanted Amy to do it because only Amy's cooking would do. That was the essence of Sonic's message.

As much as she wanted to sit back and take in the rolling awe at her own pace, delighting herself in this foreplay to an act of love, the real thing was waiting for her.

Cooking at Tails' place left plenty to be desired. His kitchen was a cramped mess, there were no cute aprons and the owner cheaped out on ingredients. The discounted wieners that she found were going to be a challenge, but Amy had practiced making Sonic's favourite chili dogs in such trying conditions before and was therefore confident in her ability to please his taste buds.

Finding the other ingredients was relatively straightforward until it was time to season the chili. Amy considered asking for Tails' help when she failed to locate the seasonings, but she eventually found some in a locked cupboard. Tails had left the key inside, though, and he must have been in a rush because a few containers were overturned and their contents spilled out. One of those containers happened to be salt, just what Amy was after, branded as GHB salt.

The end result was pretty as a picture, with a taste to boot. Amy was proud of her work. It certainly took a bit more out of her than she anticipated, but the drowsiness she started experiencing was just another sign that she gave it her all.

With that in mind, a fox was not about to steal Sonic's food from under her nose. Tails' intention was so obvious she saw through him sooner than he entered the kitchen. He didn't even get to open his mouth to get rejected.

"You can have whatever is left in the pan," she said in a deliberate tone. The hand that was aiming for the chili dogs immediately drooped and retracted.

"But it's my kitchen."

"It's Sonic's food."

Tails couldn't argue with that logic. Amy had prepared more of the toppings than it would have taken to fill Sonic up and Tails was old enough to be able to assemble a chili dog on his own.

Not that he was going to. Tails took a few mouthfuls of the piping hot sauce and bit into a bun as an afterthought. His excitement showed Amy that he wasn't used to this sort of food prepared with love and kindness. Amy was happy to help him with that, even if that wasn't her original intention.

Amy still had to present her work to Sonic. Exhaustion made her steps heavy, but she returned to his side as the victor.

This time his reaction had none of the anxiety he exhibited earlier. His eyes were brimming with gratitude, and hearing his boisterous praise in her mind brought waves of tingling from head to toe.

"Thanks, Amy! _These are the best._ How did you know?" The voice coming out of his mouth between greedy chews was muffled. Amy's ability helped her fill the blanks, however, so she heard him clearly.

Replying was harder than she imagined it would be. Now that she was right next to Sonic, receiving his praises about the food she made for him, as well praise for her kindness and thoughtfulness, she couldn't help spacing out and taking in the events as they unfolded. Before long, there was one chili dog left and Sonic had fallen silent. He was waiting for her to snap out of her dream world.

"I've been practicing..." she murmured, her gaze turning away from him. This wasn't supposed to happen. She wasn't intending to respond this way, but she couldn't stop herself. It was too much, too soon, and Sonic now had a suspect smile on his face.

He picked up the last chili dog, brought it closer to her and went: "Say, 'aah', _please_."

"Ahhh," Amy's voice trailed off.

Amy nibbled on the bun, surprised by the sudden turn, and was about to insist that it was Sonic's food when he pressed it to her lips to coax her to take a bigger bite. To make matters worse, she could hear what he was planning to do and there was no beating his stubbornness.

She hadn't realised that Sonic heard the sound her stomach has been making while he wolfed down the chili dogs. In fact, she remained ignorant of the hungry gurgling until Sonic took notice and made sure she had her share. His way of going about it left her no choice. What a hero!

The drowsiness spread to Sonic and his posture gradually loosened. He was having trouble holding the chili dog up in his hand, so Amy rushed the process by taking bigger bites and seizing his hand to finish it this way.

His hand feeling heavy in her grasp, Sonic yawned, lowered his eyelids and said, "I leave the rest to you."

Amy finished her chili dog and treated Sonic's palm thoroughly to make sure it was clean. The sleepy spell was contagious. Too contagious for Amy to consider what actually happened just now.

It wasn't until she heard a thud in the corridor that she put pieces of seemingly unrelated information together: the salt she found in the locked cabinet, the weird brand name on the container and Tails' plan to sedate Knuckles.

Amy's eyes tried to widen in shock at the realisation that she drugged her boyfriend, herself and a fox that happened to come by. The noise in the corridor was likely Tails losing consciousness. Sonic was sound asleep, and her turn was approaching fast.

The last she saw of the wildly swaying conscious world was a flashing red light out the window. It belonged to one of Eggman's spy drones.

"Sonic," she whispered anxiously, her hand stretched out to Sonic's chest, and fell asleep next to him. Amy couldn't muster a scream despite putting everyone in a precarious situation. If Eggman were to attack now, they'd have no one to fall back on. What a way to spoil a girl's dream.

* * *

"Wake up. Sonic, you have to," she pleaded. The dark void that had taken over her vision offered no consolation, but the familiar voice that reached her at its end brought her back to her senses.

"Whoa, Amy. What are you doing here?"

"Hmm?" Amy rubbed her eyes and looked in the direction of the voice. She saw Sonic standing in front of her.

Tails' home was nowhere in sight. Instead, she was greeted by a looping landscape, lush grasses and sunflowers. They were in…Green Hill?

"Look out! It's Eggman!"

* * *

Author's note: Feel free to review and follow, so you don't miss the next update.


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